mont blanc jules verne, jfk and Pope julius second.

[NDTK]

I'm a total beginner with fountain ens and I freely admit I know nothing. 

I recently acquired a box of stationery from a house clearance and amongst it there were many fountain pens. I love them all and plan to keep them all. 

I am however wondering about three "mont blanc" pens in the collection. they are all lovely, heavy, solid feeling smooth pens, but they are each in colours I can't find on the mont blanc website. 

did the jules verne ever come in black with silver trim? 

did the jfk come in black with silver trim? 

did the Pope julius second come in silver with clear sections? 

I'm currently assuming these three are fakes but there are several others in the collection that are very clearly real. I don't care either way as I'm keeping them, not selling. I just want to know. 

Thank you x

[SpecTP]

from the description of the MB pens.. the Jules Verne is a replica. Same with the Pope Julius. would need pics of the others to be sure.

[NDTK]

19 hours ago, SpecTP said:

from the description of the MB pens.. the Jules Verne is a replica. Same with the Pope Julius. would need pics of the others to be sure.

I thought so. Thank you. 

I'm now certain the Julius is a fake, I took it apart to clean and refill it and discovered that it has avremovable converter inside, not the piston filler it should have if it were legitimate. as I said though, I still love it. its such a beautiful, weighty pen. I'm not sure of its nib though (I'm told this is another tell tell sign of a fake mb because they are usually faultless?). 

The jules Verne certainly seems to be a fake because its the wrong colour. I can find nothing to suggest it was ever made in a colour other than blue. 

The JFK has me stumped. it's a heavy, solid pen, feels fantastic to write with, has all the branding, serial numbers and box, has the piston filler, but again, I can't find any evidence that montblanc made it in this colour. I assume it must be a fake for that reason alone but it feels so nice. like my insides go all gooey when it touches my paper! If the real ones are truly better than this I need them, all of them! 

 

[bunnspecial]

8 hours ago, NDTK said:

I thought so. Thank you. 

I'm now certain the Julius is a fake, I took it apart to clean and refill it and discovered that it has avremovable converter inside, not the piston filler it should have if it were legitimate. as I said though, I still love it. its such a beautiful, weighty pen. I'm not sure of its nib though (I'm told this is another tell tell sign of a fake mb because they are usually faultless?). 

The jules Verne certainly seems to be a fake because its the wrong colour. I can find nothing to suggest it was ever made in a colour other than blue. 

The JFK has me stumped. it's a heavy, solid pen, feels fantastic to write with, has all the branding, serial numbers and box, has the piston filler, but again, I can't find any evidence that montblanc made it in this colour. I assume it must be a fake for that reason alone but it feels so nice. like my insides go all gooey when it touches my paper! If the real ones are truly better than this I need them, all of them! 

 

 

Pictures would help.

 

I'm not too particularly knowledgeable on the JFK, but it was made in blue and burgundy. The "blue" is a very, very dark navy blue type color that can look nearly black. 

 

Find pictures of the nib also, as the nibs on these LEs have a whole lot of detail on them and a fake may or may not be.

 

There are some really good fakes out there, but up until recently I wasn't aware of any fakes that were functional piston fillers...

[sandy101]

The pens could still be real Montblancs - it could be that the pens are in the wrong boxes. 

 

The one with the convertor might not be a Julies, but it might be a MB c\c pen. 

 

I would suggest posting some photos if you can. It might help. 

[Dione]

2 hours ago, sandy101 said:

The pens could still be real Montblancs - it could be that the pens are in the wrong boxes.

I believe OP described the pens rather than boxes.  A black Jules Verne with C/C filler is never authentic nor is a Pope Julius C/C with removable filler inside.

[sandy101]

Yes, but that is assuming that they are MB Jules Vernes and MB Pope Julius to begin with. MB has produced pens with black and silver trims that are cartridge convertor (such as the classique). Annoyingly (although understandably) MB's website doesn't show previous incarnations of their pens. 

 

Pictures could be helpful, as I am sure there are folks with similar pens in their collection. 

 

If they are Writer's editions, here is a resource I found which might help Montblanc Writers Edition Collection (penstylo.blogspot.com)

 

The design on the nib is usually the most helpful when it comes to identification.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[NDTK]

7 hours ago, sandy101 said:

Yes, but that is assuming that they are MB Jules Vernes and MB Pope Julius to begin with. MB has produced pens with black and silver trims that are cartridge convertor (such as the classique). Annoyingly (although understandably) MB's website doesn't show previous incarnations of their pens. 

 

Pictures could be helpful, as I am sure there are folks with similar pens in their collection. 

 

If they are Writer's editions, here is a resource I found which might help Montblanc Writers Edition Collection (penstylo.blogspot.com)

 

The design on the nib is usually the most helpful when it comes to identification.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not assuming these models, it's what they are pretending to be. I'm not mistaking any black and silver pen with a mb logo for a jules verne. I called it a jules verne because thats what it looks like and it has jules verne engraved upon it. As I said in my original post, there are pens in the collection that are beyond doubt real, including other montblanc models such as the 149. I'm not an officianado but I know how to use the Internet to look at things. if I'd googled mb jules verne and it looked totally different, I would have figured that out. this one looks the same apart from the colour. 

The jfk I have is definitely black not navy. the piston filler along with the box, paper work and serial numbers is what is making me question this particular one because it doesn't seem common for fakes to have the functional piston fill mechanism, but I can't find any reference anywhere to montblanc making it in black. 

The julius is definitely fake. it's pretty though. 

[NDTK]

while we're at it, does anyone know what model this one is supposed to be? it's a fake, I know, but a fake of what? 

[Dione]

I can see a fake Pope Julius and a fake of one of the Muses editions. Can't see enough of the JFK but it should definitely be dark blue. Can you show a picture of the nib and anything of the piston filler? Does the whole cone come off or not?

[The Mustard]

The JFK looks like quite a good fake, I’m wondering why anyone would go to that much trouble and then get the colour so obviously wrong if they were trying to produce a persuasive fraud, wonder if that pen may have a genuine story behind it but I’m only speculating and don’t have a clue! Thanks for sharing though @NDTK

[NDTK]

7 hours ago, The Mustard said:

The JFK looks like quite a good fake, I’m wondering why anyone would go to that much trouble and then get the colour so obviously wrong if they were trying to produce a persuasive fraud, wonder if that pen may have a genuine story behind it but I’m only speculating and don’t have a clue! Thanks for sharing though @NDTK

I'm finding it hard to get a good picture of the nib, my eyesight is limited and my photography skill even more so. 

it has some kind of pattern on it and some numbers. 

it must have a story to it. I messaged montblanc through the chat feature on their website and asked to check the serial number on its clip. they told me that it "is the number for a writing instrument" but they were not willing to confirm or disparage the authenticity of the pen without seeing it. they suggested I take it to one of their boutiques (I didn't know there were such places!). 

It's a lovely pen. a friend of mine said if I weighed it that should give me an idea of its authenticity. I did but I'm none the wiser. it weighs 43.4grams as a whole and the lid weighs 18.3grams by itself. 

I think I'm just going to go through the whole collection (over 100 pens!) and have any I'm unsure of looked at by an expert. 

I will sell the ones I don't like or will never use, and keep the others. There are so many brands here and I've never heard of most of them. 

Parker, sheaffer, jinhao, pilot, estherbrock, moonman, montblanc, dikawen, fuliwen, benu, etc etc. and a fair few with no branding I can see. 

[Dione]

People who make fakes don't always make up serial numbers by themselves. They also search for serial numbers then use ones that have been used before. Still can't tell if it's a real JFK from that image. If it has an authentic piston mechanism you should be able to show it screwed out with the threads visible. Also, what does the feed look like?

[sandy101]

It looks like an MB nib, but maybe  not the one you'd find on a JFK.

 

The cap on my MB Wiliam Shakespeare fits on my MB146. 

 

Is it possible you have an MB 146 with a JFK cap on it, or a JFK that's had a repacement nib fitted?

 

There's more stuff "right" with the pen, than what a forger would take the trouble to copy. 

 

Taking it to an MB Boutique might be a good idea. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dione]

There are a couple things wrong with parts of that JFK that I've been able to identify: The nib should have 2014 in that oblong box above 4810 and the cap bands don't seem to have the zigzag tooling along the edge. I don't think it's authentic. Here's the authentic pen

[NDTK]

On 8/27/2021 at 9:16 PM, Dione said:

There are a couple things wrong with parts of that JFK that I've been able to identify: The nib should have 2014 in that oblong box above 4810 and the cap bands don't seem to have the zigzag tooling along the edge. I don't think it's authentic. Here's the authentic pen

it does have 2014 on the nib but the cap bands are smooth, good spot. I'd never have noticed that detail. the piston is stiff but seems to work fine. I don't know what it's supposed to look or feel like. I'm now thinking this is likely a reasonably good fake and may have a genuine mb nib. maybe the previous owner, who was clearly in love with fountain pens, just liked certain pens enough to modify them. I don't know. there are a few 149s here that are real and some other expensive pens that are also genuine. but there are also many cheaper ones too. I've been looking them all up. it seems he had a lot of chinese/Japanese and Korean pens as well as the more prestigious. I think he just loved writing. some of the jinhaos look like they've written entire tomes. a wigsung looks to have shiny ink in it still (is that a thing?).